Thursday, June 5, 2008

I decided to use Amazon S3 for hosted file storage. I would like to store files using rsync as well as storing Git repositories. Some of this data will be private, so I would like it encrypted while it is stored on S3, but decrypted from the perspective of the tools on my computer. I am planning to access S3 from a number of trusted computers running either Mac OS X or linux.

ElasticDrive. FUSE filesystem for linux, Mac OS X not available yet. Free for 5GB, significant price jumps after that and the price is per OS installation. However it is a block device and seems to do much more than I need.

JungleDisk. Mac OS X and linux support. Commercial, but costs only $20, which includes lifetime updates and can be installed on multiple machines. Supports encryption using 256 bit AES. Optional service at $1 per month that provides block-level file updates and resuming file uploads.

I considered trying an encryption layer (encfs, TrueCrypt) over s3fs, but decided to give JungleDisk a go with the hope that it would be simpler.